At least 24 people, including children, were killed and more than 50 others injured when Myanmar’s military carried out an airstrike using a motorized paraglider during a Buddhist festival in the Sagaing region on Monday evening.
According to local media, the attack struck Bon To village in Chaung U township, about 90 kilometers (55 miles) west of Mandalay, Myanmar’s second largest city, as residents gathered for the Thadingyut festival.
The event also featured a rally calling for the release of political prisoners, including Myanmar’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Over 24 people killed in #Myanmar as a paraglider drops bombs at a Buddhist festival & protest site pic.twitter.com/vCMyhDMEsC
— Insightful Geopolitics (@InsightGL) October 8, 2025
Witnesses told the Associated Press that a motorized paraglider dropped two bombs on a school compound around 7:15 p.m., killing members of the crowd instantly. The paraglider reportedly returned around 11 p.m. and dropped two more bombs, causing no further casualties.
Myanmar has been engulfed in civil war since the military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. Much of the country, including Bon To village, where the attack occurred, is now controlled by the People’s Defence Force (PDF), the armed wing of the opposition National Unity Government fighting the junta.
Myanmar’s military did not acknowledge the strike. The attack follows a pattern of the military using low-cost paragliders, known locally as paramotors, to target opposition areas as jet fuel shortages and sanctions limit use of larger aircraft.
#Myanmar (#Burma) 🇲🇲: People’s Defence Forces (#PDF) captured a Paramotor used by Junta Forces in #Pakokku.
Seemingly the Paramotor was armed with two 120mm HE / HEA High-Explosive mortar bombs —which are made by #India 🇮🇳 and supplied to the Junta Forces. pic.twitter.com/VMfPnMSMsg
— War Noir (@war_noir) April 23, 2025
Human rights monitors estimate more than 7,300 civilians have been killed since the coup. The junta plans to hold elections in December, which opposition groups and UN experts have dismissed as illegitimate.
